


Eidolon

by Jaetion



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Dawnguard, Developing Relationship, Elder Scrolls Kink Meme, F/M, Fluff and Smut, Het, Kink Meme, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-14
Updated: 2013-10-14
Packaged: 2017-12-29 08:40:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1003323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jaetion/pseuds/Jaetion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A fill for the Skyrim Kink Meme over on LJ:  "TL;DR ~ Isran eventually develops feelings for Serana, and I want both to finally have a happy ending. Run away, get married, whatever... make it happen anons! ~"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eidolon

They're both up late, watching the skies or the fires long after their watches have ended and they should have retired. Serana walks the entire perimeter of the fort until she has it memorized; Isran checks every lock and bar so often that his testing is more likely to break them then some intruder. When winter comes, it comes heavy and hard and even the mild temperatures of the Rift are plunged into ice. Patrols become harder, and most of the Dawnguard agree that the snow is added protection and there's no need to be so vigilant when not even foxes can get through the woods; most, but not Isran, who bellows at their laziness and finds a strange ally in Serana who offers to do twice the patrols. He agrees out of practicality.

When she begins her march, Isran joins her. He doesn't come right out and say that it's because he doesn't trust her, which she supposes is a tepid indication that she's achieved some sort of lasting respect. They patrol in silence and when it's finally done, stand in silence in front of one of the massive fireplaces. Perhaps he's distracted by all of his duties, or maybe he's just tired, because after one patrol when he opens a bottle of wine to chase away the cold, he passes it to Serana. She drinks with her head tilted back and neck exposed, then hands it back. She says nothing but nods her thanks, and Isran for once has no comment.

It turns into a routine, walking side by side through the dank caverns and one-by-one through the snow banks. One night they pause on the rampart in a silence that's turned from strained to companionable. Isran leans between one of the gaps in the parapet and Serana stands behind him. She wonders is his pose is supposed to tempt her, if he's waiting for her to dig a knife or her teeth through his layers of armor and fur. A hilarious idea occurs and she's only just able to change her laugh into a noise that resembles a snort.

"What?" he asks over his shoulder and this time she laughs aloud.

"Are you trying to seduce me?"

His look tells her that he thinks she’s lost her mind, and she’s inclined to agree with him. 

When they go back inside to melt away the snow by one of the fireplaces, Serana watches him watch her. She returns the gaze with her own open studying: the bright eyes and surprisingly sensitive lips, his dark beard with snow still glittering in it, the wrinkles and scars - lines that map his career of strife. 

“You’re not a vampire anymore,” he says at last. “That’s what you went away for. I didn’t believe that story about visiting the Dragonborn.” He pauses and clears his throat, then adds gruffly, “Good for you.”

“I didn’t do it for you.”

She expects him to shoot back some brutal response, but Isran just coughs again. They go back to watching the fire, a pleasure she appreciates more now that she is living again. It has a soothing hypnotism to it, with the colors made more beautiful by the heat. Minutiae that she hadn’t noticed in her years as a vampire is now so vivid it’s sometimes overwhelming. Like the way the light reflects off the studs of their armor, as gold as the sun. Or the caressing warmth on her face.

Footsteps begin to echo down the hallway as the rest of the castle stirs into wakefulness. Serana stands and stretches, cracking joints which have only just recently begun to be achy and tight. “Good night,” she says absently over her shoulder as she walks away.

“Good morning,” he corrects.

Serana turns around and at his expression - half challenging, like he expects a fight over semantics - laughs. Isran doesn’t exactly gawk at her, though his eyes are wide and puzzled. But then they soften and the firm line of his frowning lips buckles and curves under the weight of his own bemused amusement. They’re a bit closer after that. They’re both slow at everything but fighting, Serana thinks during one meal with the Dawnguard, and finds it a strange handicap to be birthed by talent. 

Some weeks later, Sorine Jurard somehow manages to get a case of Stros M'Kai Rum which she offers at a price that even Harkon couldn’t afford. While everyone else begs and threatens for their fair share, Serana surreptitiously lifts a bottle off the table and balances it between her boots through dinner. It fits awkwardly in one of her pouches and bangs against her thigh as she starts her patrol with Isran, but she’s too pleased with herself to be annoyed. It’s one of Skyrim’s bitter nights, white and algid, with sharp winds that freeze blood still in the vein. “I thought we deserved it,” she tells him as she holds it out for inspection.

He pulls his head back and squints at the label. “Not bad,” he allows. “We’ll have to warm it up, though.”

“Don’t like your drinks chilled?”

“Chilled?” he snorts. “It’ll be rock solid by the time we’re done.”

It’s not exactly frozen, Serana thinks as she inspects it. They’re at the fireplace again, though not alone - Gunmar is snoring at the table behind them - and they drag their chairs close enough that no one else will catch whiff of their pilfering. She wheezes after swallowing the first mouthful and Isran says with amusement, “It’ll put hair on your chest.”

“Been awhile since I’ve had anything this strong,” she rasps and passes him the bottle. 

He pulls off his thick gloves and Serana eases her feet out of her boots and props them closer to the fire. Taking off the sodden layers of pelts and armor is hard, and gets harder the emptier the bottle gets.

“I thought Riften was the temperate part of Skyrim,” Serana says as melting snow drips down her spine.

Isran wrings out his beard. “I didn’t build the fort here.”

“You could move the Dawnguard.”

“To where? The Alik’r? Then you’d all complain about the heat.”

“There has to be some place between the two extremes,” she says, and tries to remember her Tamriel geography. “How is Cyrodiil these days?”

“Politics are worse than snow. I’d rather deal with vampires than bureaucrats.” 

“Is there anything you like besides hunting vampires? I was locked in a coffin for centuries and I still have more hobbies than you.”

Isran clearly is not used to teasing, even of the good-natured kind, and he grumbles again into the bottle of rum. Serana asks, after another quiet moment, “Were you ever married?”

“Why does that matter?”

“I don’t know,” she replies with shrug. She’s warmed up enough that the fire is now too hot against her cheeks, so she leans back, which gives her a good view of Isran’s face in profile. It’s been a long time since she’s seen people as anything other than tools, and now, contemplating his features, she wonders how she’d define their relationship. She watches the throb of his pulse in his throat and the creases of his eyelids as he blinks, then finally rouses herself to say, “I suppose I was wondering how you'd put up with a wife or husband. Or how they put up with you.”

Isran frowns and peers down the neck of the bottle before passing it back to her. “Finish it. No, never was. Were you?”

“Before I was a vampire?” she clarifies wryly. It’s the mammoth in the room, all the time, even now with her blood clean once again. The Dawnguards hate to mention it, as if merely referring to it will undo the purification. Their fingers touch briefly as she accepts the rum, but at least he doesn’t recoil. “No. And then being imprisoned put a bit of a damper on any plans.”

She had meant for it to come up glibly, but somehow a note of bitterness gets mixed in. Serana clears her throat and manages out another bit of laughter. She doesn’t expect sympathy from Isran and he doesn’t offer anything but another grumble. 

“But we’re both still alive,” she says and lifts the bottle in mock triumph. “I’ll drink to that. Or I would, if there was anything left in here.”

It’s Isran’s turn to laugh, the sound gruff from so long of disuse, and he claps her on the shoulder. The pressure of his hand is reassuring and she reaches up to close her fingers around his. She expects him to pull away when Gunmar’s snore breaks the silence of the hall, but Isran stays there, staring wonderingly. Finally they release each other. Serana stays at the fireplace, brooding herself into drowsiness. 

They kill a group of bandits during their next patrol. The Dawnguard don’t usually concern themselves with the hold’s criminals, but anyone who takes a shot at Isran is fair game, and this bandit leader’s greed overpowered his common sense. By the time he and his gang realize that Isran and Serana aren’t the prey they’re used to, she’s already torn the soul out of one bandit and Isran’s put two bolts into the neck of another. Her crackling spells give Isran the light he needs to find the stragglers and he crashes through their stunned forms with his warhammer and the fury of Stendarr himself. It’s a massacre more than a fight, but she can’t help the feeling of exultation that rises through the smoke of their victory. It keeps her heart pounding and senses sharp, and when she licks some splattered blood off her lips, that jubilation shifts to some other emotion.

Isran leans against his warhammer and wipes sweat from his brow. “We work well together,” he says, and it’s high praise. When he looks at her, he licks his lips too and his armor grinds as he tenses in it - He’s about to say or do something when he stops himself and looks up at the moons. “We should head back.”

Secunda and Masser are a pair of wide eyes staring down at mortals and their stupidity.

“Isran,” Serana orders with centuries old impatience, “come to me.”

He puts his warhammer back over his shoulder first, but then he does, walking with decisive strides through the crimson snow. Pretense and foolish flailing, that’s what coquetry is. Stark honesty is how they faced their world and, Serana thinks when he’s nearly close enough to touch, each other.

They don’t hold back. The first kiss isn’t gentle but as she moves her lips over his, the kiss does soften and the competition in it fades. Isran opens his mouth to her and she drinks him as deeply as a vampire would. He tastes like the icy rum had, with a sharpness that mellows into spice. And there’s a sweetness there, too, dark and rich. His tongue slides over her teeth, testing the keenness where she once had fangs. Serana grabs the buckles of his armor over his shoulders and Isran grabs her elbows and they brace each other.

“We should head back,” Isran says again and Serana’s eyes snap open. She releases him and steps back, crossing her arms across her chest as the cold hits her again. He stares at her, waiting for confirmation, but she can’t find any suitable words and instead gives a half-shrug, half-point in the direction of the fort. It’s not her most graceful moment, which is maybe why he clears his throat and adds, “To bed.”

She laughs hard at that barefaced statement and it’s Isran’s turn to look abashed. He brushes snow of his armor and adjusts his warhammer, his eyes roaming through the woods like he’s desperate for some attack to launch. She reaches out again to rest her palm against his cheek and the connection between them gets reforged. “We’re terrible at this, aren’t we.”

“It’s been a while,” he admits.

“Longer for me.”

They pound a path back to the fort. Isran has the second floor to himself, which some of the Dawnguard jealousy sniped was a suitable pedestal for him to judge the others. But as they pass the cots in the sleeping area, Serana sends a silent thanks to any listening aedra or daedra they’ll have stone walls and floor between them and the gossiping Dawnguards. Once they shed their fur cloaks, she has an unhindered view of him as she follows behind him up the stairs; his armor doesn’t exactly sway, it’s much too heavy and hard for that, but it moves with his steps. He has a heavy grace to him, and she imagines the stretch and flex of his muscles under the layers of leather. 

He throws down his gloves and reaches over to cover her cheeks with his cold fingers. His thumbs stroke over her lips with a gesture so tender that Serana is momentarily too flustered to think properly. He might have said something, too, but her heart and blood are moving too loudly to hear. It’s like a spell or perhaps even a curse, to feel so inflamed but act so sluggishly. She recovers with a gasp of icy air, and twists her head to nip at one of his thumbs while she drags his other hand down her neck toward the top of her armor. He bends to kiss the skin there but then moves his mouth away to say at her collarbone, “You’ve got goosebumps.”

It’s unsurprisingly cold in his bedroom, but there are a thousand other reasons, too. Serana breaths a laugh and tugs at his beard. “It tickles.” She tugs again to reel him in closer. “But I like it.”

With a low noise he rocks against her, his hands gripping her hips. Their armor clatters when they move together - A jarring noise that makes both of them startle and swivel around instinctively. Of course there’s nothing there, the room’s empty but for them and the shared breaths between them. She lets him go to loosen her belt, and it and her dagger drop to the ground. Getting Isran’s off take more work because his mouth find a spot at the junction of her shoulder and neck, and bites - bites - her. She reaches up and clasps a hand around the back of his neck to keep him there, to press those teeth harder against her pulse. Isran obeys for once, and his arms around her tighten. Finally her hands, working more out of instinct than instruction, unravel the mystery of his armor and his belts clangs down to the floor. She has to push him away to get enough space to work open the buckles on his armored coat, but its worth it when she touches his warm skin. She holds onto him as she moves backwards until she feels the edge of his bed against her legs. She falls more than sits on it, knees weak and legs giving out, and drops down hard with none of her usual grace. Doesn’t matter - now she’s on the bed and he’s half undressed already, and she has an view of his stomach

Isran’s hands are weighty on her shoulders; he grips her like he’s afraid he’ll fall. To make his knees quiver as much as hers had, she follows a scar down from his ribs and then scrapes her nails through the dark hair that leads down to the top of his pants. She tilts her head up to meet his eyes; Isran dark stare is unwavering and then he nods his permission, that grip getting tighter the closer she comes to him. Her fingers slink in under the waistband and she kisses his stomach, sliding her mouth down as she uncovers more of his skin. Just like she imagined, he’s all long muscle and velvet skin, with a cock that’s ready for her, and Serana groans with wanting. There’s another deep scar over one hip, a gnarled pinch of flesh healed too quickly, but she doesn’t wonder about it for long - there’s his cock to curl her fingers around and the muscles of thighs to stroke and so much skin to taste. When the hem of his heavy coat get in her way, Serana shoves at it with a few curses for good measure and Isran laughs as he shrugs it off. 

Finally.

The mattress crinkles when she falls back and pulls him on top of her. He yanks at her pants while she kicks off her boots - and finds that he’s somehow gotten his boots off too and his toes are freezing - and her shirt makes her hair tangle and get in her eyes, but then they’re both finally down to their smallclothes and then they’re both finally naked. That first embrace, skin to skin with nothing between them, is like the first summer after long winter. His erection is hot and rigid against her leg and Serana buckles to get closer. And his fingers are warm and calloused, scratching slightly as he grips her hips and holds her to him. And his chest hair scratches slightly on her breasts. And all of her is aflame, all fire spells or volcanoes or the Auriel-blessed sun. She digs her heels into the bed to lift up and meet his touch, and kicks the sheets into little hills under them. And having him on top of her is either torture or paradise.

The weakness of the mortal body, their inherent strength - Under the rolling desire is the thrill of power. She wonders and aches to discover how much of her he can handle, how much of him she can take. “Don’t hold back,” she orders both of them.

“I want to touch you,” he says. There is a rawness to his voice, a low roughness that she can almost feel, and she sighs in response because talking is just too much effort right now. “Spread your legs.”

She slides up as his hands slide down. He brushes over her clit with tremulous care, and she reaches down to pushes his fingers harder against her sex. They groan together when his stroking dips inside her, and that taste of things to come makes her growl in hunger. She locks her legs around his waist, trapping their hands between them, and reaches up to grind a kiss against his panting mouth. They can’t stop moving, finding exquisite joy in the feel of every slip and slide and rub; and then Serana tilts her hips and Isran curves his palms over her thighs, and they fit together.

She draw him in, ankles on his legs and knees against his sides, and claws at his back, fingers skidding over his sweaty skin as they try to find purchase. She digs into the flesh under his shoulder blades when he pushes against some magical spot. Her whole body is racked by flood or a bonfire or a storm - and she curls up and finds his throat with her mouth and bites him back. 

When the orgasm hits her, Serana shakes and groans and doesn’t let him leave her when he comes, too. They stay clenched together until Serana leans backwards and slids her mouth away from his throat. There’s blood there on his skin and she licks her lips she tastes it there. For some reason she laughs at it and wipes her mouth on the back of her hand to show Isran, who is staring at her quizzically.

“Once a vampire,” he says in a gravelly voice and she laughs harder.

Not that it’s particularly funny. But she’s happy. Happy for once, which is a strange miracle. Her laughter doesn’t stop when he kisses her, and she keeps giggling when he rolls over and she sits astride him.

It’s cold now without Isran’s body covering her and Serana shivers and reaches down to pull a fur over them. She pauses as she raises it to her shoulders and asks with a frown, “I can sleep here, right?”

“Yes,” he answers instantly. His cock is softening but he’s still inside her; perhaps it’s that intimacy that makes him add his own question, “You mean tonight? Or from now on?”

“We’ll start with tonight,” she says and curls up beside him.


End file.
